There are cases that need to be acknowledged where the rule can’t be so rigidly applied. Because the course of the vestibular aqueduct is an oblique one, short-axis reformats should be used in the evaluation, a point made in a study of 15 patients by Dr. Curtin. He and his colleagues determined that, when it is examined in this way, the aqueduct should really measure less than 1 mm along its course. This, Dr. Robson said, “introduces a gray zone, in that patients with a normal midpoint diameter but with an opercular diameter of between 1 to 2 mm could be potentially abnormal.
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July 2015“Indeed,” she said, “in some of these children we have actually noticed cochlear incomplete partition type 2 anomalies. I think that is the gray zone where we would perhaps provide a measurement rather than coming down hard on saying whether or not it’s enlarged.”
Thomas Collins is a freelance medical writer based in Florida.